What's eating my garden?

The title isn't wrong - I don't mean what is eating this plant - I do mean what is eating my garden?

I have lost two complete clematis to the THING and the others are severely gnawed.  This is a photo of one of them that has had every green bit of it chewed off - it is reduced to sticks.  The other one looks even worse - I thought it was dead but it is putting up shoots from the base which are also - guess what - being eaten.

Another clematis threw out a puny flower which also got eaten.

Where it isn't actually eating the whole plant it is taking huge chunks out of leaves and with the exception of woody plants it seems to like everything.  It is hacking away at the foxgloves and even stinging nettles!!  These and other 'hairy leafers' make me think it probably isn't slugs as they don't go for plants with hairy leaves.  

Actually I hardly ever see a slug or a snail - I have worked hard year on year reducing their numbers (we were knee-deep in them when we moved here) and then keeping their population down.

I did see quite a lot of earwigs last year - could it be those?  That said I haven't seen a single one yet.  I did have lily beetle but thought I had got rid of that????